Let’s pretend it is the 1995-96 MLB offseason and you are George Steinbrenner. History will show that icons are about to emerge on the stage for the Yankees, but you are going to prevent one of them from becoming a full-time Yankee. Which of these moves do you make?

1- Hire a manager other than Joe Torre to lead the club.

2- Trade Mariano Rivera.

3- Trade Derek Jeter.

The rules are you have to make one of these choices. I don’t think there are any wrong answers, but I will refrain from posting my decision until later.

4. Try to secure a contract to be the only person legally permitted to play me, George Steinbrenner, as myself, George Steinbrenner, on the newly renamed “Steinbrenner and Seinfeld” show. Because my PR people tell me it would be a shrewd move.

Mariano was a once in a lifetime closer. Nasty stuff and amazing durability. Jeter was a great all-around player who led by example. Torre was good, but I have to imagine the Yankees could have stumbled into a manager at some point and win, especially with the talent at hand.

Not to knock Torre but he had no success in the post season before or deter the Yankees.

I think it is possible they don’t win three in four years without Torre at the helm.

Say what you want but balance of locker room, talent, coaches, manager all play into winning. Maybe someone “better” makes daily personnel decisions that twist history and it doesn’t go as you know. Beauty of conjecture. Maybe Mo doesn’t get used the same way. Maybe over achievers like Brosius don’t blossom and produce the same way needed.

Too easy to say another manager would have had same or better results. As a fan, many bad managers get by where players take fall and many good managers never get credit either.

Here is another interesting bar stool discussion — Suppose George Steinbrenner’s “lifetime” ban is not rescinded. Suppose further they make the same exact decisions after 1995 — fire Showalter following the ALDS loss to Seattle (his act had gotten old), hire Torre, give the SS job to Jeter etc. They win the WS in 1996. Suppose also that they again make the same decisions after 1996 — sign Wells, etc. They lose to Cleveland in the 1997 ALDS. OK — what do they do next? Do they replace Watson as GM with Cashman? If not — if they keep Watson (which I believe they do) or if they replace him with someone other than Cashman — do they win 114 games and the WS in 1998? Do they win the WS in 1999 or 2000? I think Steinbrenner fired Watson as punishment for the Yankees having lost the 1997 ALDS, grossly unfair though that may be. But how does history unfold after 1997 with Steinbrenner out of the picture and someone other than Cashman as GM? Do they trade Wells for Clemens? I think so — can’t resist that marquee name. Do they pick up Neagle and Justice? Maybe, maybe not — but they probably don’t make the playoffs if they fail to make those trades. Do they sign Mussina (I think so — he was available and they needed him). Do they sign Giambi? Maybe they don’t bid against themselves and he stays in Oakland for $90 million.

I could definitely see things unfolding the way you did. But, I suspect that George would have sold the Yankees by 1992 if he had truly been banned for life because he couldn’t handle being banned from sports. In this alternate universe, he finds an eager buyer in Cablevision and soon enough Jim “JD” Dolan is running things in the Bronx. (And since Cablevision doesn’t buy the Rangers and Knicks, Steinbrenner does because he has to be in sports.) Dolan immediately hires Reggie Jackson to be GM because he wants a big star from the past to run the team. Reggie chases the veterans needed to win a championship by trading the young guys like Jeter, Pettitte and Rivera. The Yankees blow up on the field, but Reggie is kept on and spends Dolan’s money in buckets. His spending spree culminates when he gives Alex Rodriguez a 10-year/$252-million deal to play short for the Yankees. Dolan likes A-Rod so much that he un-retires #3 so Alex can wear it. Alex later admits that the pressure of wearing #3 led him to PED use in a tearful confession with Oprah.

The only good news in all of this is that Steinbrenner’s spending brings the Knicks multiple titles as he signed Michael Jordan as a free agent in 1996. The Rangers are not as successful and their fans have now waited 74 years to see a winner. The Yankees are now playing in a beautiful new stadium in suburban New Jersey with their partners the Devils and Nets as co-tenants.

My answer would be that you are costing the team championships, it is just a question of how many. I view it that 1996 was the foundation to everything that came afterwards, so you have to preserve 1996. So I definitely keep Torre because in 1996 “Bad George” still reigned and caused a lot of damage. Torre was the perfect buffer to that and you have to have him in 1996.

The key to the 1996 team was their ability to make a game a six-inning affair. You can’t do that without Rivera, so he stays.

I fully recognize that this costs the Yankees an all-time great in Jeter, but I am banking on the fact that the Yankees learn to win in 1996 and that carries them forward. They probably still win in 1998, that team was so good they could afford to lose almost anyone from it, but I expect they fall short in 1999 and 2000 without Derek.